The present invention generally relates to methods for dispensing premium items, specifically relates to methods for including flat premium items on the exterior of containers, and in the most preferred form relates to peel out portions incorporated in labels for containers including arcuate portions.
Due to the fierce competition in the marketing of products, it is the practice of many manufacturers to include a premium with the product to promote the sale of the product beyond the marketability of the product itself. It can certainly be appreciated that such promotional devices must meet several requirements. First, as such devices are typically given away with the product, such devices must be relatively inexpensive to manufacture. Additionally, such devices must have the ability to be easily included with the product without disruption of the normal handling of such product. Thus, it is desirable that the promotional device be includable with the product without requiring different types of packaging or the like, which would increase the cost of product production. Similarly, the promotional device should not require special handling or care by the manufacturer and retailer of the product beyond that normally given the product without the promotional device. But most important, the promotional device should have consumer appeal to maximize the promotional value of the device.
One type of promotional devices which meet these requirements and which have had successful market acceptance are flat premium items like coupons or the like which are placed with the product and especially coupons which can be immediately redeemed to purchase the product.
One type of product for which immediately redeemed coupons has posed a particular problem is rigid containers formed of plastic, metal, glass, or the like and having a label formed from a single thickness of material such as paper attached thereto. One approach is to attach the releasable coupon by a low strength or peelable adhesive to the label referred to in the trade as "overlabeling". It can be appreciated that if the releasable coupon was attempted to be attached to the label before it is attached to the container, problems resulted in the label application machinery as the labels did not lie flat in the magazine but bulged therein due to the increased thickness of the releasable coupons (which was amplied due to the large number of labels which are stacked in the magazine) and as the releasable coupons tended to catch in the packaging machinery resulting in the releasable coupons being partially or totally removed from the label. Thus, a preferred method was to apply the releasable coupons to the labels after the labels are attached to the containers. For placement by mechanical means, this involved an another piece of equipment in the packaging operation which is undesirable at least due to reduction in line efficiencies. Additionally, such equipment generally did not successfully apply releasable coupons to every labeled container but rather a certain number of the containers did not include a releasable coupon. Additionally and especially for cylindrical containers having circular cross sections, the position of the containers and of the labels thereon are not uniform in the releasable coupon applying equipment so that the releasable coupons are randomly positioned in both horizontal and vertical axes on the labels of the containers.
It can then be appreciated that customer dissatisfaction and complaints can arise if advertising promotions and/or the printing located on the exterior of the product indicates that a promotional device is present when in fact for that particular product purchased, the promotional device was omitted for whatever reason. Likewise, the promotional device can be positioned on the product in a manner which potentially obstructs or otherwise interferes with the desired aesthetic appearance of the product to the customer. In fact, such causes of customer dissatisfaction may actually reduce the marketability of the product if occurring frequently. It can then be appreciated that promotional devices can be placed with the product manually. Although greatly reducing the chance of omission or misplacement of the promotional devices, such manual placement is relatively expensive in both the labor required but also in the disruption of the normal handling of the product. Automatic placement by mechanical means is less costly in both labor and disruption of normal handling, but typically increases the possibility of omission or misplacement of the promotional device with the product.
Another approach to solve the problem of providing immediately redeemable coupons for labeled containers is to incorporate the coupon in the label itself. This avoids the problems associated with the attachment of the releasable coupons to labeled containers. However, labels including incorporated coupons encountered other problems and in the past have not achieved significant market success. As an example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,167 shows a coupon formed into a label which was removed by pulling in a direction generally perpendicular to the axis and generally parallel to the circumference of the container. However, it should be appreciated that cuts which are oriented generally parallel to the axis of the container tend to flag outwardly due to the curvature of the container to which the label is applied. This flagging often results in the coupon being partially or completely torn from the label during the label application or during later packaging operations and thus resulting in an unsaleable product.
In an attempt to overcome this natural flagging occurrence, the cuts which are oriented generally parallel to the axis of the container and generally perpendicular to the tearing direction were formed by relatively coarse perforations and/or by complex perforations such as perforations which are not along a straight line and which were difficult to tear. This is undesirable for several reasons. First, such coarse and/or complex perforations resulted in large fragmentations and/or relatively rough edges on the releasable coupon. Thus, the coupon was unsightly to the consumer and difficult to handle for retail personnel and in redemption processing. Additionally and especially for annular labels which are secured to the container only at their overlap, there is a large tendency to tear the releasable coupon and/or for the label to tear completely especially between the upper and lower edges of the label and the coupon. Thus, the remaining portion of the label was unsightly and had a large tendency to be completely removed from the container so that identification of product inside nontransparent containers may not be readily available.
Thus, a need continues to exist to provide flat premium items on the exterior of labeled containers which overcome the problems and deficiencies of prior approaches to solve this need. In preferred aspects, it is especially desirable to incorporate the flat premium item into the label itself in a manner which is transparent to all packaging operations and which overcomes problems and deficiencies associated with prior labels including incorporated coupons.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide novel methods for dispensing promotional devices with products.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide such novel promotional device dispensing methods for flat premium items such as coupons on the exterior of containers.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide such novel promotional device dispensing methods for flat premium items such as coupons on the exterior of containers including arcuate portions.
It is still further an object of the present invention to provide such novel flat premium dispensing methods incorporating peel out portions in labels for containers.
It is still further an object of the present invention to provide such a novel label including an incorporated peel out portion which is transparent to all packaging operations.
It is still further an object of the present invention to provide such a novel label including an incorporated peel out portion which is removed by pulling in a direction parallel to the axis of the container.
It is still further an object of the present invention to provide such a novel label including an incorporated peel out portion which does not include large fragmentations or relatively rough edges when removed from the remaining portions of the label.
It is still further an object of the present invention to provide such a novel label including an incorporated peel out portion which substantially eliminates undesired tearing of the label and the peel out portion during removal of the peel out portion.
It is still further an object of the present invention to provide such a novel label including an incorporated peel out portion which is relatively easy to tear from the label.